IT'S 12:30 A.M., and De'Aaron Fox just slid on a pair of Chelsea boots with his gray slacks and a brown ribbed crew neck sweater over a collared white shirt.
As teammates wearing Nike tech fleece, jeans and hoodies scurry through the locker room to board SUVs and buses awaiting outside that will take the San Antonio Spurs to an optional team dinner after their Game 3 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves in the conference semifinals, Fox stuffs both hands into his pockets and shakes his head.
The 28-year-old "old man" of this young group has made up his mind.
"It's already 12:30. I will not be at the dinner," Fox said. "We can do brunch tomorrow."
Fox acknowledges he's a man who thrives off routine, having "one, two, maybe three options of what a day is going to be like, and I don't veer off from that very much at all." It's behavior Fox learned through nine seasons in the NBA.
Fox says he firmly believes the steadier his life is off the court, the more his game can grow. It's how he continues to rise every time he falls fighting through a high right ankle sprain that has hobbled him since Game 4 against the Wolves on May 10.
"It allows me to be more consistent, more levelheaded," Fox told ESPN. "If I'm not making shots, I feel like I don't get sporadic. Even when I'm making shots, my game doesn't change. I think I stay kind of level, through it all."
But Fox's NBA routine was upended more than a year ago when he was traded by the Sacramento Kings, the only team he'd played for in his first eight NBA seasons, to the Spurs. Immediately, he morphed from thriving as his squad's ball-dominant star to joining a team built around Victor Wembanyama, the future of the NBA. The change hasn't been without its hiccups, but Fox's leadership on the back end of the transition could be the key to helping San Antonio topple its most daunting challenge to date: the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder. The teams are tied 2-2 heading into Game 5 (8:30 p.m. ET, NBC) on Tuesday.
"I felt like I could come in, fall in line," Fox told ESPN. "But then everybody's like, 'No, you do you.' So, there are times where I do that, and then there are times where I want to make sure everybody's touching the ball, everybody's fine, everybody's comfortable."
IF THERE'S ONE person who understands Fox's need for grounded routine better than anyone else, it's his wife, Recee, who moved to San Antonio at age 10. She operated doggedly similarly in becoming a McDonald's All American, like her husband, at Johnson High School, before playing college basketball at UCLA, Texas Tech and California. Formerly Recee Caldwell, she also participated in training camp with the WNBA's Seattle Storm and served as a player development intern for the Washington Wizards and Golden State Warriors.
During her final season at Berkeley, as the couple started getting to know each other, Recee would visit De'Aaron in Sacramento, and they'd shoot hoops together and sometimes play. She knows his game so well that Fox told Spurs teammates to listen for her voice whenever he misses a free throw.
"Elbow up," they both said simultaneously, laughing.
"Yeah, there you go! Elbow over eye. If you put your elbow over your eye, the arc is better. If he's missing left or right, it's because he's shooting off these three [fingers]," Recee says, demonstrating. "I've grown to leave him alone during the games. But the free throws, I'll never stop because also everyone else is quiet. So, I know he's going to hear me. He needs to listen. That's all I'm going to say."
De'Aaron clapped back.
"I be listening," he said. "I be hearing."
The truth, though, is these days De'Aaron and Recee don't talk nearly as much basketball as they used to largely because of their responsibilities as parents. After the couple married in 2022, De'Aaron still found time to work out during their honeymoon in Italy, which they eventually agreed to cut short so the guard could prepare for that upcoming season in Sacramento.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Recee even took the lead in working out the two-time All-Star.
When De'Aaron mentions how little the couple now talks hoops, Recee quickly interjects.
"I know how to read the room," she says. "He's been a professional for a long time. He's learned to self-correct. You've had years under your belt. You know where you messed up. So, there's no reason to keep harping about it."
Still, there's nobody better suited to walk alongside Fox through this latest journey than Recee, who watched the guard learn to play a new role on the fly in San Antonio. In his lone postseason appearance with Sacramento in 2023, Fox dominated the ball, averaging 27.4 points and 7.7 assists on 84.4 touches.
The scoring, assists and touches have dropped significantly throughout this playoff run with a Spurs squad loaded with talent and led by generational talent in Wembanyama.
Fox also changed his jersey from the No. 5 he wore in Sacramento to Recee's college No. 4.
Recee lights up when asked whether De'Aaron is properly repping her number.
"I'm so proud of him this year," she said. "He's stepped into a whole new role. He's sacrificed a lot. A lot of the [Spurs] have with how talented they are. And to be able to do that on the fly with no offseason training because of the hamstring [injury suffered last July] is insane."
Recee says she thinks she might be working somewhere in the NBA now as a player development coach had she not married De'Aaron. During her time at Golden State, while pursuing her master's degree at Cal, Recee worked with Luke Loucks, a former Warriors player development coach who is now the head coach at Florida State. It wasn't uncommon for her to be in the gym assisting Loucks with players such as Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant.
The Spurs don't have any veterans with the résumés of those two stars. What they do have is a young phenom who has proved to be the best possible pick-and-roll lob partner for Fox.
"He just makes the game fun," Wembanyama said of Fox. "We get into so many downhill situations and fast breaks and he facilitates a lot, whether it's with his playmaking or his scoring."
The duo entered this postseason with seven combined games of playoff experience, all coming from Fox in 2024. But Wembanyama flat-out said, "We don't care," when asked about the team's lack of experience on the heels of a 38-point blowout win over Minnesota in Game 2.
And Fox says he sees no reason why they can't become the first team since 2020 Los Angeles Lakers to win the title without having played in the playoffs in the previous six seasons.
"The only thing people think we're missing is experience," Fox told ESPN. "No one's ever said, 'They don't have the players. They don't have the talent. They don't have the coaching.' It's always just experience. That's literally the only thing. So, if it's this year, next year, two years, I think this team's ceiling right now is a championship."
De'Aaron Fox limps to the bench after suffering leg injury
TWO NIGHTS AFTER Spurs coach Mitch Johnson declared that Fox's performance in Game 4 of the opening round "might have been his best game as a Spur," the guard pieced together arguably his most meaningful outing of the playoffs up to that point.
Fox reeled off 13 of his team-high 21 points in the fourth quarter of Game 5, as San Antonio won its first playoff series since 2017, eliminating the Portland Trail Blazers 4-1. Fox scored or assisted on 42 points that night with teammates knocking down 75% of their attempts off his passes.
"I think it's just him growing, maturing, and being in big moments," said Spurs forward Harrison Barnes, who spent six seasons as Fox's teammate in Sacramento before they reunited in San Antonio. "He's able to speak to different people's situations because he's gone through them. He's helped guys, grown and developed his own all-around game and just impacted winning."
So far in the playoffs, when the Spurs have won Fox's minutes, they hold a record of 7-1. When San Antonio loses those minutes, its record is 2-3.
"He's shown in this league that he can put up big numbers, and he's done that as well for us," Johnson said. "And then [he] also sat right next to Victor in the passenger seat. He's given the ball to Dylan Harper and Steph Castle, these young guys that are just fearless and relentless and want to attack every possession. Then somehow, [he] also can take over the game and dominate. He probably is the most unsung reason why this has all worked."
Fox proved to be the engine that has made San Antonio go this postseason in clutch, fourth-quarter moments alongside Wembanyama. Fox has committed only two turnovers in the fourth quarter of the playoffs to go with 16 assists. Fox is currently tied for ninth in fourth-quarter scoring (69 points) and fifth in assists. Fox ranks as one of only five players to log at least 50 points and 15 assists in the fourth quarter this postseason.
It's not a surprise, given that Fox was the NBA's Clutch Player of the Year in 2022-23. But Fox isn't alone here, as Wembanyama has scored 74 points in the fourth quarter this postseason, which ties for fourth in the NBA. Castle, meanwhile, has logged an NBA-high 29 assists in the fourth quarter this postseason.
Much of Fox's strength in the clutch stems from an elite ability to get to his spots off the dribble. This postseason, Fox has shot 43% on off-the-dribble 3-pointers, compared to Minnesota's Anthony Edwards, who was 16-of-52 on such attempts. Fox has drilled 49% on all his shots off the dribble, which is seventh among playoff participants with 80-plus attempts.
Fox has also created 81% of his own shots this postseason, good for fourth in the NBA.
"We want him to be that guy for us, that closer for us," Spurs forward Julian Champagnie said. "[We] give him the space he needs and be there when he needs us. For the most part, it's his world and we're kind of living in it."
San Antonio understands what life is without him. With Fox sitting out of the first two games of the conference finals because of the sprained ankle, the Spurs averaged 22 turnovers and surrendered 27.5 points from those turnovers. Since his return for Games 3 and 4, San Antonio has cut down the turnovers to 14 per game with Oklahoma City scoring an average of 16.5 points off the miscues.
Despite Harper (adductor) and Fox hobbling through leg injuries, San Antonio chose to not list either guard on its official injury report heading into Game 4 or Game 5.
Fox grabbed 10 rebounds in the Spurs' win in Game 4 on the injured ankle. But on one play that night, associate head coach Sean Sweeney implored the 28-year old to use his instincts to secure a rebound. Fox explained that instincts put him in position to grab the board in the first place.
The mind was willing. But the body, "wasn't able," Fox said.
Fox played through the injury and produced his second career postseason double-double with 12 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and no turnovers as San Antonio evened the series 2-2.
"As long as we can make every possession tough on them, if we can play with pace, we give ourselves a chance to win," Fox said. "If we lose, it is what it is [as long as] we played the right way. More often than not, we've come out on top whenever we've played our game."